When It's Love by Bella Andre, Lucy Kevin Read Free Book Online

question of taking pride in her appearance. Just because she was a single mother didn't mean she had to look ragged all the time, did it?
    Rachel was just about to head out when her boss called. “Hi, Frank. I’m guessing you want to check on some figures?”
    “I was taking a closer look at the data on diving accidents in relation to salvage and noticed that you hadn't broken them down by depth of water here, so—”
    “Frank, can you hang on for a sec?” Rachel said, interrupting him mid-sentence when she heard someone knocking. “There’s someone at the door.”
    Rachel was shocked to find Nicholas standing on her front step, holding a huge stuffed rabbit in one hand, looking every bit as handsome as he had after getting out of the shower. Although, unfortunately, wearing more clothes today.
    Unfortunately ? She meant fortunately !
    “I was just coming to pick you up from Grams’ house to take you over to Morgan's studio,” she said, so stunned to see him that she forgot to even say hello first.
    “It’s a nice day,” Nicholas offered by way of an explanation. “I thought I’d walk over and save you that part of the journey. I got this for Charlotte.” He held up the toy rabbit. “I hope it will help make her feel a little better.”
    It was such a sweet gesture that Rachel felt her heart melt in her chest. Sexy and sweet was quite a combination...one she was finding harder to resist by the second.
    “She’s actually fine today,” Rachel told him, smiling as she thought about how wonderfully resilient her little girl was. “She woke up and went to school as if nothing had happened yesterday. She's even at dance practice now. But it was so kind of you to think of her.”
    He smiled back, then pointed to her phone in her hand. “Is there someone on the line?”
    Oh no! She'd forgotten all about her boss. Gesturing for Nicholas to come inside and put down the stuffed rabbit, she said, “Sorry about that Frank. You’ll find breakdowns by water depth in Appendix C.” After she answered a couple of other quick questions, she hung up, then told Nicholas, “Let me just get my keys, and we can head out.”
    “No rush. Everything will work out fine.”
    Rachel wished life could really be that easy, that she didn't always have to feel like she was needed in three places at once or everything would just fall apart.
    When they got out to her car, she realized he was missing something. “No surfboard today?”
    “People have seen me surfing plenty of times. With this show, I'll get to introduce the audience to a bunch of fun new sports, like rock-climbing, parasailing and hang gliding.”
    Dangerous new things, by the sound of it. But she wasn’t here to try to talk Nicholas out of anything. She was just there to get him to her sister’s studio. And if there was a part of her that thought those sports actually sounded like the most fun imaginable? Well, Rachel would just keep pointedly ignoring it. Just the way she'd been working so hard to ignore the memory of Nicholas wearing nothing but a towel...
    “This really is a beautiful island,” Nicholas said as Rachel drove.
    “I agree,” Rachel said, “but you must have seen plenty of beautiful places before now. I mean, you’re from Hawaii, which sounds amazing.”
    “Hawaii is definitely amazing, but just because Walker Island isn’t all white sand and tropical beaches doesn’t mean it isn’t incredible in its own right. At least, from what I’ve seen of it.”
    For a moment, Rachel was hit with the urge to offer to show him more of it. The berry fields with their surrounding wild flowers. The cliffs on the north side of the island. Even the small town had a kind of quaint antiquity to it that would be great to walk through with Nicholas beside her. She could easily imagine sitting with him on one of the small beaches.
    But she knew she couldn’t afford to think like that, couldn't let herself be drawn in even deeper by him. Not when he would be